This has started Just lately after starting my PC. When I double click My Documents Icon on the desktop the system just hangs for about a 90 secs before opening. Also when I right click on the cd rom drive icon to explore the contents of a cd it hangs permantly and I have to press "ctrl alt delete" and shutdown explorer to get out of it. Most annoying anyone have any Ideas??? Thanks. BTW running win98se

Try doing a cleanup of your system starting by emptying C:\Windows\Temp
Next right click the Internet Explorer icon on the Desktop and select Properties->click the buttons to clear Temporary Internet files and History.
Next go to Start->Settings->Taskbar and Start Menu->Startmenu Tab and click the Clear button.
Right click the Desktop and select Properties->Screen Saver Tab and turn off screensavers. Disable your Antivirus program.
Next right click your C drive and select Properties and click the Cleanup Disk button. Then while still in the C drive Properties go to Tools and run Scandisk and Defrag
When finished go to Start->Shutdown->Restart in MS-DOS mode and at the command prompt type SCANREG /FIX when finished type SCANREG /OPT

see if that helps

It's a damaged CD or CDROM drive with lots of dust on laser eye.

Thanks for your replys guys. Afraid non of the above helped. Harry O, I followed your instructions exactly as you said, but when I came to right click on C drive to select properties the damn thing locked up on me again. So its not just the cd drive that locks after all. Arghhhhhhhh

Update: Upgraded to IE6 and all is well